XAVIER INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SERVICE

PROJECT REPORT
TOPIC Value orientation among managers and its reflection on ethical
conduct.

Submitted to:
Prof. Pinaki Ghosh

Submitted by:
Deesha Dutta (10)
Sudeep Tirkey (13)
Rahul Anand (22)
Debjyoti Mukhuty (24)
Anisha Lal (60)
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Acknowledgement
We would like to express our deep sense of intellectual debt to our mentor and
teacher Prof. Pinaki Ghosh , who gave us the opportunity to work on such a topic.
He also provided valuable comments and suggestions from time to time as to
methodology, style and substance. Without his help, guidance and encouragement,
the making of this project would not have been possible.

Group Members

Table of Contents

S.No.

Topic

Pg. No.

1.

Executive Summary

2.

Introduction

3.

Review of Literature

4.

Conceptual Framework

5.

Research Methodology

6.

Analysis of the Questionnaire

11

7.

Conclusion

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1.Executive Summary
Organizations that support ethics initiatives consistently show more productivity and
employee retention than organizations that consider corporate ethics merely an
issue of compliance.
An ethical corporation is not an oxymoron: in fact it can be very successful. A
company that conducts business in an ethical manner engenders respect from
within the company and from outside. Employee retention is high at companies that
promote ethical behaviors. Consumers demonstrate brand loyalty to companies that
exhibit a strong sense of corporate responsibility and stewardship. The need for
corporate ethics is strong. In a marketplace of unfair competition, underhanded
practices, and consumer distrust, the company that emerges with its integrity intact
becomes a preferred consumer choice. An ethical company is only as strong as its
weakest employee.
Work Ethic is defined as a group of moral principles, standards of behavior, or set of
values regarding proper conduct in the workplace (Pareek, 2012).
Ethics at workplace can be seen in the kind of relationship that exists between
management towards the client or a customer, or between manager and employees,
or between employees towards Employer, Co-worker, customers. Business Abuse
which can be any illegal, unethical and irresponsible act done against an employer
.Examples can be like stealing of merchandise, money or time, vandalism, falsify
records- break confidentiality, ignore safety rules, misrepresent merchandise, poor
client services, irresponsible behavior, addiction of drugs, alcohol and tobacco. We
also encounter Harassment of co-workers or clients, unwelcome sexual advances,
Compliance as condition of employment, compliance as condition of employment,
Interferes with or work performance through intimidation
There are two ways of approaching the subject--the "individualistic approach" and
what might be called the "communal approach. We have given more consideration
to the individualistic approach present in a corporate office among strict rules of
code of conduct.
Our findings were as follows:
We found that ethics, at the end of the day, depends on the choice of the person
whether he wants to follow it or not.
We also concluded that the organization can motivate its employees to be ethical
through strict rules and code of conduct. Eventually, an employee working
alongside these rules realizes the importance of moral values.
We also concluded that a majority of managers fail to follow or implement a value
based working environment.

2.Introduction
Ethics are the principles and values an individual uses to govern his activities and
decisions. In an organization, a code of ethics is a set of principles that guide the
organization in its programs, policies and decisions for the business. The ethical
philosophy an organization uses to conduct business can affect the reputation,
productivity and bottom line of the business.
Organizations both in public and private sector are constantly striving for a better
ethical atmosphere within the business climate and culture. Businesses must create
an ethical business climate in order to develop an ethical organization. Otherwise
saying, companies must focus on the ethics of employees in order to create an
ethical business. Employees must know the difference between what is acceptable
and unacceptable in the workplace.
When talking about ethics in organizations, one has to be aware that there are two
ways of approaching the subject--the "individualistic approach" and what might be
called the "communal approach. In this particular project we try to evaluate
managers on their ethical conduct and therefore try to determine the extent to which
they try to follow and implement ethical behavior in their respective organization.
Hence we take on the individualistic approach.
We, however, considered the communal approach as part of the organizations
ethical code. Ethics at workplace can be seen in the kind of relationship that exists
between management towards the client or a customer, or between manager and
employees, or between employee towards Employer, Co-worker, customers.
Business Abuse which can be any illegal, unethical and irresponsible act done
against an employer .Examples can be like stealing of merchandise, money or time,
vandalism, falsify records- break confidentiality, ignore safety rules, misrepresent
merchandise, poor client services, irresponsible behavior, addiction of drugs, alcohol
and tobacco. We also encounter harassment of co-workers or clients, unwelcome
sexual advances, compliance as condition of employment, interfere with or work
performance through intimidation.
Our study highlights the ethical orientation of managers and hence estimates their
ability to implement a value based working environment in their offices.

3.Review of Literature
The word values can sometimes be interpreted with having only to do with touchyfeely type things like feelings. However, the idea of values, when it comes to
management/strategy, relates much more to practical matters. There is a huge
correlation between correct value alignment and success.
Values can be defined as those things that are important to or valued by someone.
That someone can be an individual or, collectively, an organization. One place
where values are important is in relation to vision. One of the imperatives for
organizational vision is that it must be based on and consistent with the
organizations core values.
Values are what we, as a profession, judge to be right. They are more than wordsthey are the moral, ethical, and professional attributes of character.
Values are the embodiment of what an organization stands for, and should be the
basis for the behavior of its members.
ETHICS is the..

Rightness & wrongness

Goodness and badness of human conduct
About standards and ideals
About norms and values of certain seriousness
A standard of behavior and ideals
Principle of conduct governing an individual or a profession
Where a significant number of people do not look at disdainfully.
Keeping your promises
Respecting sentiments of beings.
Distributing benefits and burdens in a fair and equitable way.
A diagnostic tool: that establishes/makes:
Moral standards
Norms of behavior
Judgments on moral behaviors
Opinions and attitudes about human conduct.

Ikt has been argued previously that , though , individually people may have same
attitudes but their behavior changes according to the type of organization(private or
public) they are working in due to their entirely different set ups. (Baarspol, 2009)
We have looked at the summary of various literatures published in the past like that
of public-private culture comparisons ( (Rainey et al, 1986); Perry and Rainey 1988;
Baldwin 1991; Rainey and Bozeman 2000; Boyne 2002). But it was Murray who
sparked a true series of studies with a paper in which his views were that although
(Murray, 1975)have been developed in the public and private sectors but the need
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of both the sectors are similar with almost similar constraints and challenges in the
future. He set the direction for the comparison of private and public sector culture on
which others have built their researches from time to time and we have listed 26
studies in last 40 years on the topic and their key findings in the table below.
Even though previous researches have given attention to the differences at the
organizational level, such as red tape (e.g. (Baldwin, 1990)), organizational politics
(Kapun, 2005) and risk culture (Kingsley, 1998), most of the recent empirical
research has turned to individual aspects with respect to how they relate to various
aspects of organizing within their employers organization. But yet almost none has
related their findings to the overall performance of the organization as it is popularly
perceived that public organizations does not generate revenue due to indifferent
attitude that persists among the employees of public sector organization. Whether
this indifferent behavior is due to individual attitude issue or organizational structure
is the subject of our study.

4.Conceptual Framework
Our objective of this study is to find out the ethical orientation managers possess in
the corporate world and how much of it they do implement in creating a value based
working environment.
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We proposed the following flowchart to simplify the conceptual framework.

Sort out the values that are to

be examined in the manager

Evaluate the answers on the

basis of each value upon the total
number of sources of data.

Prepare a questionnaire where each

of these values are tested

Decide a sample space of managers

who will be answering the
questionnaire.

Project the evaluation through

charts and draw inferences.

Highlight the findings and

present it on the report

5.Research Methodology
Research Methodology
We chose an exploratory research design where questionnaire schedules were
administered to the sample selected and the responses were quantified for the
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quantitative analysis and the study was done. Each question was provided with four
options and each option was marked. If the manager stuck to a value based
approach he gets higher marks.
Research Design
Descriptive research was conducted where survey method is adopted to collect
primary information from the employees using quantification of the responses as
required and secondary information is also used for the analysis.
Primary Data
Primary data was collected by the questionnaire prepared for the research topic and
to record the response from the respondents. Since the study is mainly inclined to
know the effect of ethics in daily working of government and private sector
employees, we worked on a sample size of 60, with 30 respondents from the
government and 30 from the private sector, to have an equal representation from
both the sectors. We did not restrict ourselves to select organisations under both the
sectors but we collected our primary data by the employment of ad-hoc procedures
and on the ease and availability of the respondents.
Secondary Data
This is the part of the information that will be collected from the
Internet
Books and magazine articles
Company website
Allied information from web
Sample Size
We took a sample size of thirty managers which was decided on the basis of
judgmental sampling and snowball sampling since many managers refereed us to
other managers.

Development of Questionnaire
The questionnaire was developed on the basis of few values and each value was
assigned a maximum of five points and a minimum of 1 point according to the option
selected by the research subjects. The following values were taken into
consideration:
9

Honesty
Truthfulness
Discipline
Regularity
Punctuality
Manners
Selflessness
Reliability
Responsibility

Limitations and Problems Faced

Small Sample Size: The questionnaire could not be administered to a bigger
sample because of time and cost constraint.
Convergent Answers: Most respondents had views that converged to one or
two alternatives and not much difference was observed.
Limited Scope: The organizational culture and climate are so speckled and
varied, that it is difficult to encompass all the likely factors influencing the
employees conduct pattern at the workplace The survey has a limited scope as it
administers convenience sampling and the sample selected does not have a true
representative nature.
An interpretation of this study is based on the assumption that the respondents
will give correct information.
Besides, the study also has the limitation of time, place and resources.

6.Analysis of the Questionnaire

Values

Manager Manager Manager Manager Manager Manager

1
2
3
4
5
6
10

Honesty

Truthfulness

Discipline

Regularity

Punctuality

Manners

Selflessness

Reliability

Responsibility

Total

23

31

33

26

31

29

Values

Manager Manager Manager Manager Manager Manager

7
8
9
10
11
12

11

Honesty

Truthfulness

Discipline

Regularity

Punctuality

Manners

Selflessness

Reliability

Responsibility

Total

28

21

25

28

29

21

Values

Manager Manager Manager Manager Manager Manager

13
14
15
16
17
18

12

Honesty

Truthfulness

Discipline

Regularity

Punctuality

Manners

Selflessness

Reliability

Responsibility

Total

29

34

24

27

19

23

Values

Manager Manager Manager Manager Manager Manager

19
20
21
22
23
24
13

Honesty

Truthfulness

Discipline

Regularity

Punctuality

Manners

Selflessness

Reliability

Responsibility

Total

20

35

27

33

29

26

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Values

Manager Manager Manager Manager Manager Manager

25
26
27
28
29
30

Honesty

Truthfulness

Discipline

Regularity

Punctuality

Manners

Selflessness

Reliability

Responsibility

Total

27

36

32

26

23

33

15

40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Chart 1.1 Distribution of marks obtained by the managers

Managers scoring above 30 were termed as responsible and ethically oriented.

Hence according to the research study only 9 out of the 30 managers were able to
score above 30. Hence, we can say that only 30% of the total sample space
consists of managers who are ethically oriented and hence possess the ability to
induce a value based working environment.

7.Conclusion
For years conventional wisdom suggested that people do not leave companies, but
rather they leave because of bad business management also known as bad
managers. Poor business management practices are more related to the problem of
poor business ethics or values than to the common symptoms such as poor
delegation or poor communication. Every organization, no matter size, should have
a written business values statement of non-negotiable behaviors that will be
demonstrated by everyone. Each employee from top down needs to consistently
demonstrate the same values and ethics. Inconsistent values from managers can
dramatically affect employee motivation and ultimately employee performance.
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In this particular study, we were able to demonstrate the present environment

prevailing in the corporate of Ranchi. This particular environment could be because
of a lot of reasons related to education, prevailing impact of the present environment
and cognitive orientation of the person in question. However, during the interviews,
we observed an intention among several managers to move over to the ethical built
of their workplace.

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